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Jessica Antonelli
Adventurer
@jescantonelli

It is so beautiful to see the connections here and thrilling to hear what amazing courses everyone is crafting. I want to take them all!

For me this discussion crystallizes how learning to battle the dragon of resistance in the creative cycles teaches us how to use those same skills for self-evolution. Love your poetic description of this @lumasphera!

So as for my homework from Bradley: Brainstorm what exercises, games or activities can you create, make up or write down that will help fortify their creativity in the ways you speak.

I love the idea of gamifying artistic transformations…SuperBetter does a great job of this, as far as giving people badges or points or overcoming psychological struggles…. I don’t want to necessarily build a whole game-world or system, but I like the idea of people getting some kind of recognition for achieving intangible, psychological goals…
In fact, some of the most important transformations in learning to draw are so invisible and mental people don’t even know they exist. Such as being able to look at an object and focus on either positive or negative space.

***maybe I could have a self-reflection checklist after finishing each drawing where they rate things like how often the inner critic was speaking in their head, what percentage of the time they were looking at the page vs the model, how much they felt in the flow, whether they were looking at both positive & negative space, etc.

-Many of my students often tell me they are too embarrassed to show their work, or they can’t draw if other people are around because they get self-conscious. Sharing their drawings in a semi-removed forum online might help them get over that…as well as learning how to politely give and take constructive criticism… which is also important for developing a positive vocabulary for self-evaluation.

– Let them pick a personal challenge, such as a drawing a day for X #of days, or only drawing in pen for a month, or doing a self-portrait once a week, etc. Encourage challenges that sneakily encourage the to make drawing a habit.

– creating a ritual around their drawing practice where they surrender the responsibility of being a genius to [insert universal/personal energy/muse here], and put on their lucky socks or some such, in order to find a healthy detachment from their work and create with less fear

…I would love to hear any other ideas or brainstorms anyone else has for practices or exercises we can use in our courses to help boost the creative confidence of our students. Gracias to all!